Tuesday, August 29, 2006

WARM UP_HARRY POTTER

Ok, so I'm going to try and do warm up drawing each day. And I'll post up most of them. At the end of the year, if I keep it up, i'll have a ton for the next years sketchbook. I'm not going to give myself any rules. Some might be inked, some might be markered up, some might be rendered wtih pencil (if i can get better at it). I do want to keep each drawing to an hour, to an hour and a half.

Todays is Harry Potter. I love these books, and I'm listening to "The Order of the Phoenix" for the next few days. I've started it a few times, but have started from the begining again today. I want to get thru this one so I can listen to the "Half Blood Prince" I've heard that one is sick.

I'm ok with this one. It's not blowing me away. After finishing, I realize I didn't put much thought into it. Just Harry standing there for no reason, holding is wand up for no reason. There really is no point to this piece. That is something i will have to keep in mind each day. I want to pu characters in a situation, and make sure the props make sense. That's the lesson today...think a little more. Make the sketch have a point. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN...I should tell myself that more. We'll try to beat this one tommorrow.

Monday, August 28, 2006

BATTLE CHASERS

I loved this book, and I realized that I had never really done a BC piece. Well, one, about 6 or 7 years ago. (it was terrible) So, I thought I that I would take a break from Spidey pages today and do a Battle Chasers tribute.

Calibretto and Gully. We won't waste time on gully. as you can see, she's so tiny,and really just there to show the size of Cali. Right off the bat, I started some doodles and making sure that I found a shape that would set it apart from Joe Mad's. His was fantastic, but it's hard not to do this character exaclty like Joe's version. So, I went for wide, squaty feel. Shorter, wider arm cans, very animated style legs and feet. I also wanted to make him seem like he had been thru some...well battles. But I didn't want to do the normal comic book "cracks" only. So, i thought, and looked around. I saw Eric Canete (fucking brilliant artist) do these crazy round concrete bullet hole time things, I thought, I 'm gonna swipe the fuck out of that. So, with a little inspiration from Eric, I went with the swiss cheese type dents in his armor.

Here you can see the sketch and the final lineart. Inked with Nib and Brush, and done on bristol board 11x17.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

A PIG AND A CLOWN, AND A FISHTALE ON THE GROUND

So I thought since I pissed and moaned thru yesturdays blog, that I would at least try to make up for today.

This is a page from my next book at Marvel. Remember in the old Spider Clan books, Peter always had the wierd visions/nightmares? This is one of those. I don't want to say a whole lot about it, because it's already strange enough, I'd rather you be confused, and pissed that you don't know what's going on...cause that's how I roll.

This was inked using a little of everything, pens, brush, nib, you name it and i used it on here. I've said in this blog before, but after the crazy open style on New Warriors, I just wanted to take this book in a new direction. Try something new on it.

I do want to thank C.B. Cebulski (writer on this book) and all the people up at Marvel that put this book on the schedule. Spiderman: Legend of the Spider Clan was my first series at Marvel, and I look back it now and want to die! It was such a fun idea, and had so much room to do crazy things, and I just wasn't good enough yet to fully take advantage of it. So, years later, after a stack of books drawn, some studying on this, some learning on that, I wanted the chance to take another crack at it. So, thanks for the second chance.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

FUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKK!

Today was one of those days where the paper and pencil that I pay my rent with decided to be my nemisis, my sworn enemy, the mother fucking bane of my existance (at least for the last 10 hours). I sat at this table all day, and nothing. I take that back, on the page for Spider Clan that i'm working on, I drew one figure. One! That's out of about 7, and that's just one panel. That's not counting the 4 other panels i didn't even touch. I've been sailing thru this book, doing what I feel to be my best pages to date, and today just sank that ship.

I guess these days happen, and I shouldn't be surprized when they pop up, but fuck, it just gets to me. But, there's alwasy tomorrow. So, for todays blog, I thought I would share a few pages from my new sketchbook B-sides. At least show a few doodles that I like, and get this day behind me.

On the sketchbook note, it should be up for pre orders with in the next month or two. I've been going thru a few printers, trying to get the best book possible, and have got one now. So, for those of you that have been chomping at the bit, it is coming. Just keep an eye here for more info.

Friday, August 11, 2006

NIGHTCRAWLER

This was a piece i just did for fun, and then used it for prints at the summer conventions. Again, after working the super clean and open line style with New Warriors, I was dying to add some black into things. So, I kept this one pretty cartoony, but really just stuck the character in the middle of crazy blackness.

Nightcrawler seems to be a pretty popular character. I get asked to draw him a ton at cons, so I thought people might dig this new take on him. Like every piece I do, there are little things that I don't like when I'm done. Like the smoke, I wish I would have thought a little harder on that one. I just went with my first instinct, which isn't always bad. But I'm trying to teach myself to break the habbit of using my go to forms all the time. If I think of one way to do, I want to stop, and think of 4 other ways after that. I really just comes down to telling myself to slow the fuck down and think. Pushing myself, you know.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

JESUS CHRIST....VS. VAMPIRES

This is a cover I did for my buddy Tim Seeley's book at Image, Loaded Bible. You should go check this book out.

I wanted to approach this cover from a new place. My last project was New Warriors, and that had a very animated, saturday morning cartoon feel. After 6 issues of that style, i wanted to play with some new techniques. this was a great chance to add some grit and grime to the overall feel of the piece. And, i added some blacks, with is a crazy thing for me. But I really liked the out come, and I think that this will be a style that I'll play with for awhile. I like the dark side of things, while still keeping it full of energy. Now, there are still a few spots that I feel I could have thought out more, and fixed a few spots, but overall, I'm feeling this one.

You can see here, that the idea started with the most elementry doodle. it's almost not even a readable image. But I knew what was going to happen. the rough sketch, my version of pencils. That's all I do for pencils. I ink myself, so I like to still make some decisions when inking. It keeps in fun. I used to try and make my pencils super tight, but i'm all about the energy of a drawing. the inks will be tight later. Then the inks. I used pens, nibs, brush, black and white inks. I tried it all. what ever gets the job done.

And then the colors. i just wanted it to be simple. At first, I had everyone in gray, even Jesus. But Tim pointed out that Jesus got lost in the colors, and he was right. So, I slightly adjusted his skin tone to make him stand out. But I still wanted it subtle. I also added the image with the title...thanks Tim!

This is my cover for my new Marvel book SpiderMan Family (or something like that) This is another one that I wanted to play with. Not as drasitc as the Jesus cover, but still a slight change up for me. If you haven't heard yet, i'm working on a new Spiderman: Legend of the Spider Clan one shot. It will be 40 pages of new story, in a book with a few other reprinted Spiderman stories. A story with the Black Costume Spidey, a story with Spidey 2099, and a Ditko Spidey story. So, I needed to incorporate all of those into the cover.

At first, i had a hell of time coming up with an idea. It was fucking tough. I wanted to do a cool montage cover, but it started looking like a "Team Spidey" book, and that was...well, lame! So, I keep doodling and came up with an idea that got approved (the Peter Parker image), but once I started working on that idea, I fucking hated it. So, I hit up my editor, Jon Barber, and asked if I could try something new again. He actually gave me a great idea. He told me to take the widecreen idea, and ad a Ditko style spidey on top of it. So, I did, and guess what.....fucking magic baby!!!

On the art approach, I tried to let my style "grow up" a little. I wanted my spidey to have a little more mass than I would normally give him. And I wanted him to feel like the old, ditko spidey. The black and white version was cool, but i knew that when I colored it, I would need to push those panels back some how. Ryan Ottley (Invinsible) was here at my house while I was coloring it, and he showed me how Bill Crabtree pushed back a similar idea on one of his books. So, i used that same technique. But I wanted each panel to have it's own color theme. So, thanks to Ryan, and Bill for helping with the idea on the finish.

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Skottie is the artist of the New York Times Best Selling and Eisner Award winning series of OZ adaptations published by Marvel Comics. Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, and many more.
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